Author Archives: colinmathers

Are humans heating up the world?

Posted on January 10, 2019 by colinmathers

I was in Australia over Christmas-New Year period and the southern parts of the country were sweltering in a heat wave. Yesterday, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology issued its 2018 climate statement, revealing a record breaking run of rising temperatures. … Continue reading →

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New estimates of the causes of child death under age 5

Posted on December 9, 2018 by colinmathers

WHO has just released the latest update on global causes of death for children under age 5 for years 2000-2017. These are available for download on the WHO website at  https://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/estimates/en/index2.html and also in the Global Health Observatory at http://www.who.int/gho.  … Continue reading →

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Seven WHO staff named in world’s most highly cited list

Posted on December 5, 2018 by colinmathers

Seven staff from the World Health Organization have been included in the 2018 Clarivate Analytics 2018 Highly Cited Researchers List. This list includes more than 4,000 leading researchers in 21 fields of the sciences and social sciences from around the … Continue reading →

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NEW PROJECTIONS OF MORTALITY AND CAUSES OF DEATH TO YEAR 2060

Posted on November 14, 2018 by colinmathers

Back in 2006, I published a paper in PLoS Medicine with detailed projections of deaths by age, sex and cause for all regions of the world, from year 2002 to 2030 (https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0030442).  That paper has proved very popular, with over … Continue reading →

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Are countries on track to meet the global targets for noncommunicable diseases?

Posted on September 21, 2018 by colinmathers

More than half of all countries are predicted to fail to reach the UN target to reduce premature deaths from cancers, cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease, and diabetes by 2030, according to a new analysis published by the NCD Countdown … Continue reading →

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Noncommunicable disease mortality in tropical countries

Posted on July 31, 2018 by colinmathers

The recent WHO update of causes of death for 186 countries in 2016 (www.who.int/evidence/bod) has been used as the basis for an assessment of the importance of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in tropical countries. The paper “Acting on non-communicable diseases in … Continue reading →

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Latest information on the state of the world’s health released by WHO

Posted on June 17, 2018 by colinmathers

In mid-May, WHO released World Health Statistics 2018: Monitoring health for the SDGs  (WHS2018). This WHO flagship publication compiles data from the organization’s 194 Member States on 36 health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicators, providing a snapshot of both gains … Continue reading →

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Disease Control Priorities, Edition 3

Posted on December 24, 2017 by colinmathers

The third edition of Disease Control Priorities was launched by the WHO Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom, in London earlier this month. These nine volumes provide up-to-date evidence on priorities that countries should consider in order to reach Universal Health … Continue reading →

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Universal health coverage

Posted on December 14, 2017 by colinmathers

A WHO report monitoring progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) was released yesterday. It reports the proportion of the population that can access essential health services, and the proportion that are pushed into poverty by healthcare expenses, for 183 countries. … Continue reading →

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Child mortality continues to decline, but large disparities remain

Posted on October 25, 2017 by colinmathers

The United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN-IGME) released new data last week showing that the world has made substantial progress in reducing child mortality in the last several decades. The total number of child deaths has dropped … Continue reading →

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